Tag Archives: V&A

Chanel at the V&A

Back in January I went to the Chanel exhibition at the V&A and it was really good. I’ve been to a few exhibitions at the V&A and I did enjoy this one. I actually didn’t know that much about Chanel’s fashions besides the obvious jacket and loose billowy trousers/loungewear she invented, so this was pretty eye-opening for me.

(disclaimer – I have not edited the below photos (as there are too many!) so apologies if they are a little wonky or badly lit.

This is one of the earliest surviving Chanel garments, from 1916! It’s the Marinière Blouse and is made from fine-gauge silk jersey, a fabric that was previously used only for underwear.

This dress is from 1919, as necklines were starting to go down and hemlines up. I didn’t think that Chanel would have made such intricate and pretty clothes – goes to show what I knew going into the exhibition!

I was surprised and fascinated by all of the intricate seaming work on some of the clothes – like this criss-cross of seams across this dress. She also had a fairly neutral colour palette, even quite early on (but with some bright colours thrown in, as you’ll see). I love how the seam on the body follows into the seam onto the pocket!

I love how she used the dress fabric on the coat lapels. And how the flowers have been cut out and sewn onto the neckline and hem of the dress.

And this dress had had flowers cut out and sewn on the top to make them 3D!

I don’t really wear dresses any more but I love this one, from 1934. I think the 30s was so glamourous, in a kind of effortless way, with the bias cut skirts etc.

A relatively early wool suit, from 1924-5. This is the kind of vibe I expected from Chanel to be honest. Though of course it makes sense that she also did more glam stuff and evening wear – her clients needed outfits for all occasions presumably.

Chanel often used embroidery on her simple silhouettes. It’s very difficult to photograph black clothes in exhibitions but I did manage this close up of some embroidery on a black dress from 1923.

There was, of course, a room dedicated to Chanel’s perfumes. I love how the design of the bottles has never really changed! And I’m not gonna lie, I really want this travel set from 1936!

This selection of evening wear from the 30’s looks so floaty and swishy and cool. It makes me want to flounce around in them! I guess the only limitation of an exhibition like this is you can’t see the clothes worn by actual humans, or in motion.

This black beaded dress even mentioned that motion was key for Chanel. It’s a shame they couldn’t put a video of the dress in motion. I understand some of the garments might be too fragile to be worn, but it could have been gently shaken so we could see the beading shimmering in the light as it moved.

Another dress I would have liked to have seen in motion…

I did wonder how they would tackle Chanel’s less than stellar behaviour during the Second World War, but there was a room dedicated to her conduct. The exhibition was sort of chronological so it came after this room of 20’s and 30’s dresses, but before the room of suits (which obvs was thematic instead). There were documents and a lot of explanation of what she did during the war.

There was a whole room of Chanel suits (though I only took videos really, which I can’t upload here – I’ll share them to Instagram, if you follow me there). It wasn’t quite as impressive as the room of toiles in the Dior exhibition, but it was nice to see them side by side and to see how the design did subtly change over time. And I love the pink stands!

Who could forget about the Chanel bag! They’re not my cup of tea, but iconic nonetheless.

Quintessentially 60’s suits! It was interesting to see where in her career she maybe pushed the envelope and where, as later in her career, she was more following fashion’s trends and silhouettes. The 60’s seemed to be very shiny!

Chanel returned to black dresses throughout her career. I like this one with the gold stripes.

Of course, this trouser suit is definitely an outfit I would want to wear!

More shiny 60’s!

Shiny 60’s evening trouser suits! Just so shiny!

And a shiny dress from the 60’s. Apparently she was very into lamés – and it shows!

I kind of loved this massive pop of colour right at the end!

Overall I really enjoyed the exhibition – and I learnt a lot! I did buy the book too, so I’ve got plenty of reading material and inspiration still to come. I found myself marveling at how something was constructed or patterned, or at the hand beading work involved in some of the garments. I also felt like this was a good sized exhibition – I’m sure it’s sacrilegious to say so, but I felt the Dior one was a bit too big. I found myself overwhelmed by the end, but not with Chanel, it was just the right size.

Did you manage to see the exhibition before it closed? What did you think?

Fashioning Masculinities Exhibition

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Last year the V & A had an exhibition called Fashioning Masculinites which was all about the history and evolution of menswear, using art as well as clothing to illustrate the changes and themes. I managed to go in pretty much the last week and I’m so glad I made the effort as it was super interesting.

Like some previous fashion exhibitions I’ve been to, the clothes were arranged in themes rather than purely oldest to newest. So the first room was all about underwear – the shirt started off as underwear and evolved into more visible, but still underneath other layers, and then into outerwear.

I liked how much the exhibition touched on gender expression, including displaying binders alongside boxers and briefs.

I also appreciated that it wasn’t just British/European fashion, but clothing from other countries too, like this Jama from India. It’s hard to believe it’s over 170 years old too, it looks brand new!

in the underwear room there was some discussion of Victorian prudishness, and I particularly liked this leaf that was made to cover up the genitals of a copy of Michelangelo’s David! Lol!

But I think my absolute favourite thing in this first room was this trompe-l’œil Jean-Paul Gaultier jacket. When you stand close to it, it just looks stripey, but stand back and you’re treated to a very sculpted nude male body!

I loved how the exhibition made it clear that dressing flamboyantly is nothing new, and has been happening for centuries!

I couldn’t believe how intricate this breastplate is!

So below it looks like 2 versions of the same cravat, but in fact the brown one is carved from wood! It was once owned by Horace Walpole, who used to wear it to greet guests to his house. I’m not gonna lie, I kinda want a wooden cravat/tie now.

The amount of work that must have gone into the fabrication on this jacket, was pretty astounding!

And this outfit is even more ornate – and it’s been toned down!

Below you can see a modern garment that was inspired by the above outfit. This is why I especially enjoyed the way the exhibition was arranged. It made the connections through time much clearer to see.

OMG this was one of my absolute favourites! I kind of want to try to recreate it for the Dressmakers’ Ball – but obviously I wouldn’t be able to do that amount of beading/embroidery so I’d have to find some suitable fabric I could use instead. Either way I think I definitely want a cape, even if I don’t recreate this actual outfit.

So beautiful!

There was a rainbow section, where the outfits were arranged by colour, which I particularly enjoyed – because who doesn’t love a rainbow of clothes!?

This suit was worn by Harry Styles – I had to wait a while before I could get a photo of it because it was definitely one everyone was taking photos of, and a lot of people were taking photos of themselves with the suit.

I particularly enjoyed the juxtapositions in this section.

So good! I would wear either of these outfits!

I love the green tartan suit, below.

The section on how military uniforms have inspired fashion was especially interesting – like we know when a detail is ‘military inspired’ but seeing them side by side made it even clearer where those influences came from.

I freakin’ love this photo – and they used it for the cover of the exhibition book, which I think was a great choice. I did treat myself to a book – and because it was like the last week or so, it was reduced – score!

An actual outfit worn by actual Nelson!

There was a quite large selection of tuxedos and black suits – but they were pretty much impossible to photograph! They had on worn by Gary Oldman on the red carpet – complete with the glasses he wore in the pocket!

I couldn’t not include a slightly crap photograph of a Marlene Dietrich suit, though.

After the black suits and tuxedos – through history and as fashion on the red carpet – there was then a small display of how men’s evening wear has evolved somewhat for the younger generation.

It was very cool to see this Gucci dress worn by Harry Styles in person! I mean I’ve seen the photographs from Vogue, but actually seeing all the detail and layers and work that went into making it was pretty amazing. Whenever I see proper couture clothing, I realise why the ateliers are the best in the word and why the designers are so sought after.

Another Billy Porter outfit – I remember seeing this for the first time on the Oscars red carpet and thinking it was amazing. I still think it’s amazing. He really does have genuinely great style!

The last outfit in the exhibition was a dress from Drag Queen Bimini Bon Boulash, who was one of my favourites on her season of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK. Who couldn’t fall in love with her with lines like ‘the nipples are the eyes of the face’!

I do really love going to fashion exhibitions – they always give me so much inspiration and knowledge I didn’t have before. I think the next one I’ll be going to (hopefully, if I can get tickets) is the Chanel exhibition, also at the V&A. It opens in September I think.

Fashioned From Nature Exhibition

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A couple of weekends ago I went to the Fashioned From Nature exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. It’s on until January next year and if you are able to, I would really recommend you try to make it to see it. It’s in the same place as the Balenciaga exhibition but for some reason I thought it would be smaller, but I was really amazed at the scaled of the exhibits and the accompanying information. I think we took longer to look around this one than the Balenciaga one!

Fair warning, this post is very photo-heavy!

The first half of the exhibition was a little depressing if I’m honest – it was about how we have exploited the world throughout history to make clothes. The first dress had a whole map and explanation about where all the different components came from.

There was a section and garments relating to each thing used to make clothes which came from/comes from animals, like silk.

This lace was truly a wonder to behold, given that it was all made by hand – some of it by bobbins and some of it with needles!

I’ve always kind of liked whales, I think since I did a project on them for a Brownie or Guide badge so it makes me sad that they were used in clothing and accessories, as much as I can admire the carving of this walking stick.

I love how the x-ray of this corset shows the whalebone inside.

Even hats had whalebone in, to keep their shape.

The things made of fur were also a bit sad. It’s a tricky thing because it makes sense that in the past people didn’t have synthetic alternatives (which come with other problems) to enable them to keep warm, but of course suddenly killing lots of the same animal means there will eventually be a lot fewer of them.

Wool seems like one of the less evil things we’ve made clothes from – at least the sheep is still alive once it’s been sheared.

It’s amazing that these colours have lasted as long as they have, given that the book is over 200 years old!

I couldn’t believe how tiny the coat on the left was! I can only assume it was for a teenage girl.

Cotton obviously has been responsible for a lot of evils in the past, but it must be one of the most used fibres ever for clothes.

Cotton opened up a whole load of possibilities of colours, and designs.

I love how even in the 1780s people refashioned clothes to make them last longer or make them more up to date with the changing fashions.

These hand made buttons were teeny tiny – I don’t even know how someone would make them!

I love the combination of patterns on this dress – there are 2 different designs of flowers on the different parts of the dress.

I think I found the feathers possibly the most upsetting because there were multiple things with whole dead birds on, which is just creepy – I don’t know how it was ever fashionable to wear a whole dead bird as earrings or on a hat.

I love this photo of a group of men protesting against the killing of so many egrets for fashion. Not to stereotype, but they don’t look like a group of radical protesters!

Also I found out that ‘mad as a hatter’ as a phrase came from the fact that milliners used mercury and actually went a bit mad.

With the advent of synthetic dyes, a whole new world of possibilities opened up in terms of colours, but then, as now, the impact on the people and the environment was less than perfect.

I loved this diagram of how the below dress was assembled.

A slightly nicer part of the exhibition was the part about how the Victorians got all into nature and so painted/embroidered images of the natural world on their clothes.

I’m sure it was on an episode of No Such Thing As A Fish (a brilliant podcast) where they talked about the Victorians’ obsession with ferns, and that was definitely in evidence in the clothing in the exhibition.

These are silk flowers!

I like how even in the past, people experimented with using unusual fibres to make clothes, like this dress made from pineapples.

This dress, rather creepily, is decorated with beetle shells.

One thing I didn’t really consider as coming from animals was mother of pearl, but of course it comes from the inside of shells.

All of the below things are made from spun glass, which somehow was woven into fabric. I don’t know how strong it is, but it’s pretty impressive!

The second part of the exhibition (upstairs) was much more hopeful that the first half – it was all about new developments in sustainability and designers looking for better ways of making still beautiful garments.

This dress was one of my favourites in the whole exhibition. It’s made from strips of cellulose acetate stitched into silk and decorated with artificial pearls. And it’s from 1936! It looks like it was made last year!

This dress from 1920s Paris is made from Bemberg silk, which is made from cellulose.

This 1980s dress is designed to stretch over people of any size, which means the manufacturer doesn’t have to make multiple sizes, which means less waste from the sizes which remain unsold.

I love this ‘suitcase’ made from a suit – I should have had this idea during The Refashioners! I like how they’ve retained the look of the original sleeve and pockets.

This dress was stunning – it looked like a leopard skin draped on the front of it, but it’s all made from beads!

I love that the depiction of nature is still a thing that is done now.

I love the underwater scene on this Zac Posen gown.

Since I found the real feather so creepy, I really liked the simplicity of the fake feathers on this dress.

I was very excited to see No Patterns Needed and a shout out to the growing group of people who make their own clothes.

I’m not totally sold on this look but I can see the merit of the idea of using parts of crochet that no-one wanted to create a new garment.

Apparently John Malkovich is a fashion designer, who uses flax as his preferred fibre, as it uses less water than other fabrics.

I was quite excited to see this outfit that Emma Watson wore to the Met Gala a couple of years ago as you will already know I love her style. And I remember her wearing this outfit, which is made from 3 different components so she could wear them again in different outfits. The fabric was also made from recycled materials – I like how she uses her very high profile to shout about sustainability and to support movements like the Green Carpet Challenge.

I found it really interesting to see that the stitching on the ties was white and not black. It was quite difficult to see how the outfit was assembled as it was a little dark.

I enjoyed the exhibition so much I treated myself to the book, which I will get around to reading (and maybe reviewing) at some point in the future, when I magically have loads of spare time!

This exhibition really inspired me, along with the Love To Sew Podcast episodes on sustainability to be more mindful about my consumption of fabric and the kinds of fibres I use. I always look in charity shops for fabric but they never seem to have anything good, but I’ll keep looking. I also want to try to buy fabrics that are a bit less evil for the environment and the people who live where they are produced.

Do you think you’ll make it to the exhibition?